Saturday, January 1, 2011

New Years [Wikipedia]: In countries which use the Gregorian calendar, New Year's Day is usually celebrated on 1 January.The order of months in the Roman calendar has been January to December since King Numa Pompilius in about 700 BC, according to Plutarch and Macrobius. According to the Christian tradition, 1 January is the day of the circumcision of Christ (on the eighth day of his birth), when the name of Jesus was given to him (Luke 2: 21). Since then, 1 January has been the first day of the year, except during the Middle Ages when several other days were the first (1 March, 25 March, Easter, 1 September, 25 December).With the expansion of Western culture to the rest of the world during the twentieth century, the 1 January date became global, even in countries with their own New Year celebrations on other days (e.g., China and India).At present, the celebration of the New Year is a major event worldwide. Many large-scale events are held in major cities around the world, with many large fireworks events on New Year's Eve (31 December).